I've always been curious as ...
Question: I've always been curious as to why networks never air traditional 30-minute sitcoms (
Friends,
Will & Grace,
Two and a Half Men, etc) between the hours of 10 and 11 pm?
Answer: The networks don't do anything without a ton of research, and I'm sure experience and testing (and a few failed experiments in continuing comedy blocks into the last hour of prime time) have shown that comedy works better in the earlier hours, and given the state of TV comedy nowadays, there are diminishing returns the more you air and the later you go. The networks also tend to get darker, more serious and more adult as the night goes on, which also works against comedy. In some time periods where there's a dominant drama, it would be interesting to see one of the Big Three (Fox and CW don't program in that hour) step up with some comedic counterprogramming, if not an actual sitcom.
Northern Exposure, for instance, did quite well in that hour for several seasons. (That's why I'm curious about ABC's resistance to trying
Ugly Betty later at night, say, after
Desperate Housewives.)
